Al-Muazzam Turanshah

al-Muazzam Turanshah (1225-2 May 1250) was the Sultan of the Ayyubid Sultanate from 22 November 1249 to 2 May 1250, succeeding as-Salih Ayyub and preceding Shajar al-Durr.

Biography
al-Muazzan Turanshah was born in 1225, the son of Sultan as-Salih Ayyub. His father did not trust him, sending him to Hasankeyf in Turkey to keep him away from politics in Egypt. When as-Salih died, Faris ad-Din Aktai brought al-Muazzam to Cairo. Turanshah was proclaimed sultan in Damascus en route to Egypt, and he decided to betray his father's instructions to rely on the Bahri Mamluks by appointing other Mamluks to power. Of low intelligence, unbalanced, and nervous, he was a poor ruler, and on 2 May 1250 Baibars led a group of Bahri Mamluks to assassinate him. They split his hand open, and al-Muazzam fled to a tower next to the Nile River. The Mamluks set the tower on fire, forcing him to flee, but he was speared in the ribs. al-Muazzam, still impaled, fled into the river, and he was shot with several arrows as he begged for his life and offered to abdicate. Baibars then personally hacked him to death, and Faris ad-Din Aktai cut his heart out. His stepmother Shajar al-Durr ruled Egypt for the Ayyubids, but she would later remarry to Izz al-Din Aybak, leading to the rise of the Bahri Sultanate.